Higgs boson 'may have been glimpsed'

Scientists claim that they may have caught a glimpse of the elusive God particle during experiments in Geneva.

The team saya that they may have seen hints of the Higgs boson during two separate experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - Atlas and CMS.

If the claims turn out to be true, the scientists will have been involved in one of the most exciting developments in particle physics.

Higgs boson is a theoretical particle that gives everything in the universe mass and impacts upon how forces interact, but it has never been observed by experiments.

The scientists explained that they had witnessed spikes in their data at roughly the same mass, which could potentially be Higgs boson.

"[It] may be due to a fluctuation, but it could also be something more interesting. We cannot exclude anything at this stage," said Fabiola Gianotti, spokesperson for the Atlas experiment.

"The statistical significance is not large enough to say anything conclusive," added Guido Tonelli, spokesperson for the CMS experiment.

Posted by Fiona Griffiths